Around a year ago, Lhasa was rocked by massive anti-China protests, echoed all the way from Paris to Washington, Toronto to Milan. But the government?s media crackdown meant that reporting the protests was easier said than done. A CNN blog read, ?How do we find out what?s going on? We don?t have a crew there and are not allowed to send one now.? China-based video websites such as 56.com, youku.com and tudou.com did not host any protest scenes. On YouTube, however, citizen journalists put up many powerful images responding to the issue, including records of Tibet-related protests abroad. For example, a video called ?Global Uprising for Tibet? showed Tibetans gathering at the Olympics? ancient home, questioning why they weren?t allowed representation at the forthcoming Games. In China, access to YouTube was immediately blocked out.
On the opposite frontier, even as YouTube?s engagement with elections in the world?s strongest democracy entered the realm of folklore via will.i.am, Obama Girl and others, the US government was also putting pressure on the site. Homeland Security Committee chairman Joe Lieberman, a champion of the Violent Radicalisation and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (that the Senate has not yet passed), demanded that YouTube take down videos ?glorifying? Islamist violence. And the company did so with 80 videos, although the professed rationale was that these videos had contravened its own terms and conditions. In UK too, the Home Office draws up a list of videos it considers undesirable.
So there are tough times ahead for YouTube as more governments wake up to its popularity, tracking whether it reflects their objectives and ideology sympathetically or not. Storm clouds are also gathering on other fronts. In 2007, following on accusations of ?massive intentional copyright infringement? relating to content uploaded on YouTube, media conglomerate Viacom sued the site?s parent company Google for $1 billion. That case is still pending. And now four Google executives ? including its chief legal officer ? have been sued over an allegedly offensive video posting, in Italy. They could spend 36 months in jail if convicted. The broader issue in this case is whether internet companies are responsible for third-party content, a liability that has been generally refuted so far. The common practice has been that when community members report material they consider offensive or in breach of guidelines, the company removes the material if it agrees with the complainant. But in the Milan case, prosecutor Francesco Cajani argues otherwise, holding internet companies accountable for all online content, and holding individuals criminally responsible for their company?s desecrations. At the heart of the lawsuit is a brief video uploaded to Google Video?s Italian site in 2006, which shows four teenagers teasing a boy with Down syndrome. It?s outcome is important to how YouTube grows the business of selling eyeballs to advertisers in the future.